MICROLEPIDOPTERA OF PHILIPPINE ISLAND 283 



fuscous, except at base irregularly irrorated with yellowish white, 

 more so towards costa posteriorly. Markings white, suffused with 

 pale yellow. A large, semicircular patch on dorsum from just beyond 

 base to slightly before middle, above not reaching costa; a semioval, 

 strongly inwards-oblique patch occupying 3rd fourth of costa, dotted 

 along costa with dark fuscous, adjacent to hyaline patch which is 

 rounded and rather large; some coarse yellowish-white marbling and 

 dotting below costa before apex, sometimes crossing to middle of 

 termen. Cilia dark fuscous bronze, appearing pale grey in certain 

 lights, with several irregular pale yellowish slender bars opposite 

 middle of dorsum and a yellowish interrupted spot in tornus. 



Hindwing bright brassy, cilia paler brassy whitish. 



Female genitalia: Edge of the eighth segment aciculate, with a 

 deep excision in middle; eighth tergite narrowed and rounded, edge 

 hairy. Colliculum moderate, cylindrical, abruptly dilated at base. 

 Signum, a circle of radially arranged needle-shaped sclerites. 



Material examined: Luzon, Los Banos (Baker), 1 9; "Ace. No. 

 1266, Bur. Agr. P.I." (B. Arce) 2 9, genit. slide 5282, 5677. Total 

 4 9. 



Larviparity: Several tropical species of Monopis are larviparous 

 and probably parthenogenetic as well, e.g., the four species from 

 New Guinea, M. victa, cuspidigera, lacticaput and hypochrysa (Diako- 

 noff, 1955 p. 188). These species were represented by females only; 

 the entire abdomen of every one was crammed w^th completely 

 developed larvae (Diakonoff, 1952). Only one species from Sumatra 

 and perhaps also the present species, are known to me to possess 

 males beside larviparous females. 



The specimen from Luzon, genit. sHde 5282, might have been freshly 

 reared from pupa; it was devoid of larvae. But the female from 

 Klondyke, genit. slide 5677, proved again to be stuffed with de- 

 veloped larvae; I roughly estimate their number up to 200. 



Since the Palaearctic Monopis Hiibner species do not show any 

 signs of larviparity, it seems probable that the tropical larviparous 

 species form together a separate biological genus or subgenus; super- 

 ficially, however, they have no differences from Monopis Hiibner. 

 I hope to elaborate this point later elsewhere. 



The present material was compared with the holotype, 9, from 

 Belgaum, Bombay, genit. slide 4671 (in the British Museum). An- 

 other female specimen from Shillong, Assam, genit. slide 4675 (Meyrick 

 coll.) appeared to be conspecific. A third specimen from the same 

 collection from Cho-Ganh, Tonkin, is a male and seems to be the 

 sex partner (USNM). 



237-108—87 19 



